Is Elon Musk the greatest visionary or the greatest snake oil salesman of our age?

The article is reflects the thinking that Tesla is a car company with batteries as a sideline. I would say that this project is demonstration that the cars might become the sideline to the core battery/infrastructure business. Bloody interesting to see for home applications. Think they already do one.

Well it's not a proper flamethrower suitable for burning Nazis ,but, you can probably do something really stupid with it.

Click to expand...

flamethrowers are only controlled in two US states, maryland and california. Banned in the former and licensed in the latter. Musk's glorified chef's blowtorch is minor compared to what you could get. His does style like something from a verhoeven film but still, overgrown lighter

But because of the historic high failure rate of maiden flights, only a dummy payload is being risked.

Mr Musk has decided this should be his old cherry-red Tesla roadster with a space-suited mannequin strapped in the driver's seat.

David Bowie's classic hit Space Oddity will be looping on the radio as the car is hurled into an elliptical orbit that stretches out to Mars' orbit around the Sun.

"[The roadster will] get about 400 million km away from Earth, and it'll be doing 11km/s," he told reporters in a briefing on Monday. "We estimate it will be in that orbit for several hundred million years, maybe in excess of a billion years."

Three cameras attached to the car would provide "epic views", Mr Musk added.

I don't get it. Why would that upset Star Trek purists any more than David Bowie might? Every bugger on the Enterprise seems to be into jazz and classical music. It's like rock and roll never happened in the Star Trek universe!

I don't get it. Why would that upset Star Trek purists any more than David Bowie might? Every bugger on the Enterprise seems to be into jazz and classical music. It's like rock and roll never happened in the Star Trek universe!

Oh, nu-Trek. Never really got into that, for some reason it doesn't grab me as much as the previous stuff did. Probably because it wasn't all that distinguishable from the millions of other sci-fi action-adventure films Hollywood has come out with in recent years. Star Trek has always supposed to be a bit more cerebral (or at least pretentious) than typical offerings.

Also, Benedict fucking Cumberbatch as the genetic superhuman Khan? Really?! I'm not slating his acting skills, but he doesn't have the figure for such a role, unlike how Ricardo Montalbán did.

Oh, nu-Trek. Never really got into that, for some reason it doesn't grab me as much as the previous stuff did. Probably because it wasn't all that distinguishable from the millions of other sci-fi action-adventure films Hollywood has come out with in recent years. Star Trek has always supposed to be a bit more cerebral (or at least pretentious) than typical offerings.

Also, Benedict fucking Cumberbatch as the genetic superhuman Khan? Really?! I'm not slating his acting skills, but he doesn't have the figure for such a role, unlike how Ricardo Montalbán did.

Billionaires will never solve poverty. Only politicians can, and only when the politicians stop taking bungs from Billionaires.

We've got a while to go yet.

Click to expand...

Look this dude has a lot of cash in the bank doing nothing.
if he gives some of this cash it to people with no cash in the bank, he is helping out with real present issues way more than firing rockets into the air will ever be dealing with present global issues..

If you don't think technology has a major part to play in solving many of the problems we face as a planet you're an idiot.

Stuff like that launch is needed. It's what humans do. We push things forward and we explore. Without events like this we'd all still be sat in a cave.

Click to expand...

Yes valid, We do like to explore.
Technology is great..

Technology unfortunately cannot quash egos of some wealthy nutzoid who thinks its really cool to put one of his cars on mars..

I know its meant to show of the potential of furture missions, but its just such a flipping rich boys folly. all the cash spent could have paid for so much aid elsewhere on the planet.
I see it as opportunity missed by Elon at really doing a bit of good for the unfornunate people with less wealth and oppertunity than himself..

...if he gives some of this cash it to people with no cash in the bank, he is helping out with real present issues way more than firing rockets into the air will ever be dealing with present global issues..

Click to expand...

If you give the cash you'll spend on your next beer to a homeless person instead, you'll be helping someone with real present issues too.

Musk donates millions and has committed to leave at least half of his fortune to charitable causes.

If we're going to have billionaires, and with a capitalist set up we always will have them, I'd rather they used their cash pushing boundaries like this rather than hacking Millie Dowler's mobile phone.